NCTA's Michael Powell: 'Internet Doesn't Need Phone-Era Rules'

Makes Case in 'USA Today' Op Ed1/17/2014 8:41 AM Eastern

By: John Eggerton

"Americans deserve an open Internet: They had it before the D.C. Court decision, and they will continue to enjoy it now," National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Michael Powell said in an op ed Friday (Jan. 17) in USA Today.

That decision was the Jan. 14 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Columbia vacating the major portions of the FCC's 2010 Open Internet order.

The court upheld the FCC's authority to regulate broadband and sent the rules back to the commission for another pass at making those rules square with the law, including potentially applying Title II common carrier regulations that trigger mandatory access.

Powell is a voice of some experience on the subject. He was FCC chairman when the commission voted to classify cable broadband service as an information service not subject to mandatory access.

"Some are unsatisfied and want the FCC to retreat from its bipartisan policy of light regulation and dump Internet services into the heavy regulatory bucket of the old-monopoly telephone system," Powell wrote. "The FCC would gain more power, but the Internet would suffer."

"The FCC clearly has sufficient authority to protect consumers from harm and preserve the principles of openness we all share," he said. "We shouldn't let imaginary tales of apocalypse lead us to abandon the light regulatory model that has served the nation so well."